Thursday, July 23, 2009

Collin County Real Estae Shows Strength

We have definitely seen a change in the direction of the local market. While our local media continues to write articles about the weakness of the local real estate market we are actually seeing a change in the direction of momentum.
I do not mean to say that sales are up. Indeed they are not equal to the sales of last year. What has happened is that the sales to available inventory has reversed in direction. This is an indicator of what is to come. It is called our pending sales ratio. There is a direct correlation to the strength of the market and this ratio. What we are seeing is that the inventory of available homes continues to shrink. For instance in Plano we had 1167 active listings at the end of June. At the same time last year we had 1596. The months supply of inventory went from 5 months to 4.8 months. The most dramatic change was in Frisco where we went from 1597 to 1275. Months of inventory went from 6.8 months supply to 5.8 months supply.
Our buyers are amazed at the fact that they are having a hard time finding a home that suits there needs at a price they can afford. They become frustrated when they see something nice and find that it already has an offer coming in. The really nice homes are leaving the market quickly.
We saw the pending ratios bottom out in December of 2008 and January of 2009. These ratios have increased every month since the first of the year and we believe we will see these ratios continue to strengthen the rest of the year. If you would like the full report for all of the Collin County Markets please call me at 214-693-0593 or email me at bill@janwebb.com